


Familia

by SandstoneSunspear



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 02:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18111146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandstoneSunspear/pseuds/SandstoneSunspear
Summary: In which Maggie is a combination of me and my mother and gets to do all the things that we didn't.





	Familia

**Author's Note:**

> Para me abuelita, quien murió la semana pasada.

The call came on a Monday. Maggie was at work, arms deep in paperwork and open cases when her phone went off.

“Detective Sawyer,” she said, pen still scratching away on her latest evidence report. 

_ “Margarita?” _

Maggie blinked. “Tía?” She and her aunt called each other on the regular, but never while Maggie was at work. “What’s wrong?”

_ “It’s your mother.”  _ There was a heavy sigh on the other end that made her stomach drop.  _ “She’s asking for you.” _

“For me? Why?” Maggie hadn’t spoken to her mother in years. Not since...not since that ill-fated Valentine’s day that ended with Oscar Rodas kicking his only daughter out of the house. Her mother had said nothing, done nothing, as her husband shouted at their daughter to pack a single suitcase and get out.

_ “She’s not doing well.” _

Maggie got up. She ignored the curious look her partner shot her way and made her way to the precinct locker room. 

“What do you mean she’s not doing well?” she demanded. 

_ “She’s in stage IV kidney failure, Maggie. The doctors are doing transfusions—” _

“Why not dialysis?

_ “Mija.”  _ Her aunt’s voice was gentle, like it had been the night she picked Maggie up off the side of the road all those years ago.  _ “They can’t. In her condition, it’s just not feasible anymore. She needs you here now.” _

“I…” A part of her wanted to say no. Why should she go and be there for her mother when her mother hadn’t been there for her? 

_ “Maggie.” _

Maggie sighed. “Tía, can I call you back? I just, I need a bit.” She needed a bit and more. 

_ “Okay. Just, let me know soon, all right, mija?”  _

“Of course.”

Maggie hung up before her aunt could say anything else. She put her head in her hands. The universe had a sick sense of humour, she decided. She had waited for years to get a call regarding her mother and now she had. Only it wasn’t the kind of call she wanted. 

She pulled up her texts.

_ Hypo lifespan S4 kidney fail w/o dialysis/transplant,  _ she texted Alex.

She watched the little grey bubble pop up. Then,  _ V short. Days most likely _ .  _ Why? _

_ Adrian asked,  _ she lied.  _ School project or something. _

Her phone buzzed to reveal a thumbs up emoji pop up on screen. It made her lips twitch into a small smile. Her wife was such a dork sometimes.

She set her phone aside and closed her eyes. 

Fact: her mother had done nothing to stop her father from kicking her out of the house all those years ago. 

Fact: her mother was now dying and needed her there. Now. 

Maggie could say no. She could refuse to go back and instead resolve herself to staying in National City while her mother died alone by claiming to have the moral high ground. No one would blame her. No one but Maggie herself. At the end of the day, she knew that there was no moral high ground for something like this and saying no certainly wouldn’t place her on one. Saying no wouldn’t make a statement, it would just make her the daughter who refused her dying mother’s last request. And that just wasn’t who she was. 

Maggie’s phone buzzed. She glanced down to see a text from Lucy.

_ Your aunt called me.  _

Maggie wanted to be annoyed by that piece of information. But she knew her aunt was only trying to help.

_ I can get us all a flight for the first thing in the morning, if that’s ok w/ you. _

Trust Lucy to be on top of everything when no one else was. 

_ Please _ , Maggie typed back. 

Days. Her mother had days. She had to get there sooner rather than later. She just had to.

-

By the time Maggie got home, she felt like she had gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. Everything in her body was starting to ache and her head was pounding. She didn’t know if was from stress, the grief that was slowly starting to seep through, or some combination of both.

She found herself pulled into a hug almost as soon as the door shut behind her. She stiffened for half a second before melting into Lucy’s embrace. She pressed her face to Lucy’s shoulder and took a deep breath, savouring the hints of cinnamon, jasmine and rose that made up Lucy’s perfume. It was a welcome distraction from the throbbing migraine building just behind her eye.

After a few moments of just enjoying Lucy’s presence, Maggie pulled away. She looked around the apartment. 

“Where’s Alex?” She asked.

“Grabbing dinner from that place on 32nd.” Lucy looked her over. “Are you okay?”

Yes. No. Maybe. Maggie didn't know. 

She shrugged. “I guess. It just...I wasn’t expecting this.” She sighed. “I feel kinda guilty, to be honest.”

Lucy frowned. “Guilty? For what?”

Maggie shrugged again. “For…” She trailed off. “For feeling sad, for grieving. I don’t really have that right, you know?”

“Don’t have a…Mags, no, you absolutely have a right to feel the way that do right now,” Lucy said. 

“I haven’t spoken to my mom in almost 20 years, Luce,” Maggie said. “We weren’t, aren’t, close.”

They had stopped being close the moment she walked through the door to find her father ranting about how he wouldn’t have a child living in sin under his roof.

Lucy brushed a thumb against Maggie’s cheek. The touch was gentle, but Maggie was still so overwhelmed by everything that it made her flinch ever so slightly. 

“She was still your family, Maggie. Just because you and her haven’t spoken doesn’t mean that she stopped being your mom.”

Maggie bit her lip.

Lucy sighed. “People arguing over who had the ‘right’ to mourn my mom tore my family apart for  _ years _ ,” she said. “You’re allowed to grieve over what was and what could have been.”

“There’s no use in wondering about what might’ve been Lucy,” Maggie tried, only to fall silent at the look Lucy gave her.

“For something like this, there is.”

Before Maggie could say anything to that, the door opened behind them. Both of them turned to see Alex stumbling through the doorway with multiple bags of takeaway in hand. Those bags were carefully placed on the ground as soon as she caught sight of her lovers.

Maggie let Alex pull her into a hug. She pressed her face against Alex’s shoulder and closed her eyes. 

“I don’t…” Know what to do. How to react. How I’m supposed to feel.

She felt Alex press her lips against her air just as Lucy came up from behind to join in the hug.

“We’re right here,” she heard Alex murmur into her hair. “We’ve got you.”

Maggie clenched Alex’s top. She couldn’t stop the sob that rose to her throat. She pressed her face even harder against Alex’s shoulder and started to cry. 

The bags of takeaway were forgotten as the Alex and Lucy worked to comfort Maggie.

-

Maggie couldn’t stop her leg from bouncing during the drive to the hospital. The three hour flight to Omaha had done little to lessen her nerves.

There was a yelp from up front as Alex cut off another driver and floored it.

And Alex driving was certainly doing little to help that either. 

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you too buddy!” Alex groused, flipping the bird at the horn blaring behind them. 

“God, this is almost worse than Kandahar,” Maggie heard Lucy mutter up front. She didn’t miss the death grip Lucy had on the overhead handle.

“Your wife is certainly a...spirited driver,” her aunt said quietly. 

For the first time in days, Maggie’s lips twitched into something resembling a smile. “There’s a reason Lucy turned so white when Alex offered to drive, tía.”

“I just thought that was a gringa thing.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Lucy’s only half gringa, tía.”

“Still a gringa.”

_ “Tía.” _

“I’m joking mija,” her aunt said. Her grip tightened suddenly as Alex sped the car up even further. “Does your wife realise that it’s a two hour drive from the airport to Blue Springs?”

Maggie caught Alex’s glance through the rearview mirror. She smiled. She knew what Alex was trying to do.

“Something tells me that she knows, but she doesn’t really care what the GPS says.”

-

Alex pulled into a parking spot with a neatness that clashed with the recklessness of the overall drive itself. 

“We’re here!” She announced.

There was a brief moment of stunned silence that was broken by Lucy throwing the car door open. Maggie winced at the sound of their girlfriend retching her guts out. She shook her head and followed Lucy out of the car, leaving her aunt alone with Alex. 

She found Lucy behind the car with a hand braced against the trunk. She rubbed Lucy’s back as she coughed.

“When we get back to National City,” Lucy wheezed. “Remind me to look up whoever did Alex’s driving test and sue them for daring to give her a license.”

Maggie chuckled and kissed the side of her head. “Yes, dear.”

“Hey, my driving’s not that bad,” Alex said, coming up behind the both of them. “I got us here, didn’t I?”

Maggie and Lucy exchanged looks. Alex’s driving had gotten them to the hospital and under two hours to boot, but Maggie wasn’t too keen on repeating the whole experience. From Lucy’s grimace, Maggie was willing to bet that Lucy shared her sentiments.

“I’m driving back,” was all Lucy said in a tone that refused to be argued against. 

Alex huffed. 

Maggie turned to her attention away from her lovers to eye the hospital. It had always been an imposing building in her youth. Now, knowing what she would likely face inside, it was even more so. 

Lucy’s hand slipped into hers. Alex’s joined it in the opposite hand a moment later.

“We’re right here, Mags.”

Maggie let out a shaky breath. “Right.”

She held both Alex and Lucy’s hands in a deathgrip as the three of them plus her aunt made their way inside.

-

The woman in the bed was so different from the woman in her memories. Maggie remembered a woman with perfectly coiffed hair, a regal air, a bit of Mexican snark peppering words every so often. 

The woman in the bed had none of that. She was a mess of tubes and wires. The oxygen mask on her face fogged with shallow breaths. It made Maggie want to cry. She settled for swallowing back the lump in her throat instead.

“We’ll leave you alone for a bit,” Alex whispered.

Maggie panicked. “You’re leaving?!”

“Shh…” Alex soothed. “I’m staying, I’ll just be out here in the hall.”

“And Lucy?” Maggie looked to their girlfriend. 

“I’m headed to the funeral home,” Lucy said.

“Luce--”

Lucy shook her head. “You need to focus on your mom right now, Maggie,” she said. “If I go and start the arrangements now, it’s one less thing for you to worry about.”

It took Maggie a moment to realise that they were playing to their strengths. Lucy’s legal and administrative knowledge were useless in a medical setting while Alex’s medical background could do nothing for her when attempting to make funeral arrangements. 

“Yeah, you’re right.” Trust Lucy to be the logical one when her lovers felt like the world was crashing down around them. 

Lucy kissed her cheek. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

She walked off with Maggie’s aunt in tow, leaving Maggie and Alex standing alone in the hallway.

Maggie took a deep breath. “Is she gonna know I’m in the room with her?” she asked quietly.

Alex nodded. “Yeah. I checked her chart, she’s still aware and…mostly there,” she finished awkwardly. 

“Mostly.”

“She’ll know it’s you, Mags,” Alex said. 

Maggie said nothing. She walked into the room and took a seat next to her mother’s bedside. She carefully took an IV-laden hand in hers.

“Mami?” she whispered. 

To her relief, her mother’s eyes fluttered open. They were foggy from a combination of pain and the various drugs being administered.

A hiss of the oxygen mask.  _ “Margarita?” _

Her voice was so weak, it broke Maggie’s heart. She never thought her mother could ever sound like that. 

“Yeah mami, it’s me,” she said. “Estoy aquí.”

“Lupita?”

Maggie knew what her mother was asking. “Ella está con mi, mi amiga.” A part of Maggie hated herself for hiding. “Ella dijo que necesito un abogado y mi amiga es una abogado.”

That part wasn’t a complete lie. Lucy  _ was _ a lawyer.

“Claro.” Maggie noticed her mother’s eyes drift to the doorway. She followed her line of sight to see Alex.

“Y ella? Quién es ella?”

Maggie swallowed. She absently rubbed her wedding ring. “Ella es mi compañera,” she eventually said.

“Compañera como una amiga o…como una esposa?”

Esposa. Wife. The word came so easily from her mother’s lips that at first, Maggie thought she had misheard her. The expectant look her mother aimed her way, though, made it clear that she hadn’t.

She licked her lips. “Um, como una esposa,” she admitted. “Ella es mi esposa. Se llama Alex.”

Maggie felt her heart start to pound against her ribs as soon as the words left her lips. What if her mother said something rude about Alex? What if what her mother said was an echo of what Oscar Rodas had screamed at her all those years ago on a Valentine’s Day night? What if what if what if--

A movement of a thumb across the back of her hand snapped Maggie from her internal panic. She glanced at her mother’s face. There was no judgement, only eyes that were clearing with curiosity.

Maggie saw her mouth open with a question, but before it could be asked, the squeak of rubber against linoleum caught the attention of both of them. Maggie looked over to see a man in a white coat walk in. He wasn’t Dr. Karkouli.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He didn’t look up from the chart in his hands. “Jason Hendrix, haematologist on this case,” he said. “And you are?”

“The daughter.” Maggie couldn’t keep the clipped tone out of her voice.

Hendrix nodded. “Right, so are you aware that your mother here has myelodysplastic anemia?”

Yes, she knew. Her aunt had given her the entire run down on the way to the hospital. Her mother on the other hand… 

“Myelo…que es esto, Margarita?” her mother asked.

Maggie’s jaw tightened. “Nothing, mami.”

Her tía had specifically asked her sister’s care team to not tell her about her condition. Sometimes, ignorance was bliss and sometimes, it could make the difference that gave a patient days instead of hours.

Hendrix continued like he hadn’t heard Maggie. From the way his face was still buried in the chart, she knew it was likely.

“It’s a type of blood cancer--”

Maggie had heard enough. “All right, you’re done!” she snapped. 

Before he could say another word, she shoved him out of the room. Blood pounded in her ears. She didn’t stop moving him until his back slammed into the wall. 

Maggie wanted to rail against the haematologist, wanted to scream at him, wanted to strangle him and punt him through a wall. Her tía had made one request and this, this  _ pendejo _ hadn’t followed it. 

Alex stepped forward. “Who the fuck taught you your bedside manner?” she demanded. “I want the name of your supervising physician right now because you are no longer on this case.”

Hendrix sputtered. “That’s not your call to make Miss—”

Maggie took a sick satisfaction at the startled yelp he let out the second Alex’s hand fisted his scrub top and dragged him close. 

“It’s  _ Doctor _ ,” Alex all but snarled. Her voice was like ice. “ _ Doctor  _ Danvers, and it absolutely is my call because my  _ wife _ and her family requested that you not inform the patient of her condition, a simple, reasonable request given her status, and you elected to ignore it.”

“I, I…”

“That’s enough, Hendrix,” a voice interrupted.

Maggie looked past the rapidly paling haematologist to see the Dr. Karkouli coming up. He had a deep frown etched into his face that wasn’t aimed at Alex, but rather the hapless man in her grip. It told her that he had heard everything. 

“Doctor Danvers, if you could please release my colleague.”

Alex did just that. 

Hendrix turned to Karkouli. “Doctor Karkouli, this…”

“I said that’s enough.” Karkouli’s voice was equally as icy as Alex’s. “You’ve done enough. As of this moment, you’re off this case. We will discuss your bedside manner or rather  _ lack thereof _ later.”

Maggie almost wanted Hendrix to protest further, to say something and so that he would get ripped to shreds. But the rest of her just wanted him to shut up. Karkouli was right, Hendrix had done enough. If he opened his mouth again, she was liable to punch him before either Karkouli or Alex could cut him down.

She watched his mouth open, only to click shut. 

“Yes, Doctor,” he said, shooting Alex a dark look. He flinched at the one she returned him. He promptly turned on his heel and stalked off.

Karkouli sighed. “Doctor Danvers, Maggie, I apologise on behalf of my colleague,” he said. “He will be disciplined.”

“Good,” Maggie grumbled. “Now, my mom. I know she’s not in the best place right now, but what he said, it’s not gonna…”

She trailed off when she noticed Karkouli’s smile turn sad. 

“I’m afraid that your mother’s condition was already extremely fragile. With what Hendrix said, there’s a very good chance that her condition will worsen.”

“Can’t you go in there and tell her that he was wrong? That he read the wrong chart or something or—” Maggie couldn’t stop the pleading note her voice took.

“Maggie,” Alex interrupted gently. “It doesn’t work that way, babe.”

Maggie bit her lip. Whoever came up with the phrase,  _ sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me _ was a fucking liar. 

She took a deep breath. “Can I go in and talk to my mom?” she asked. “Maybe she didn’t believe him, maybe…”

Karkouli tipped his head. “Of course. While you’re in there, there are a few things I’d like to discuss with your wife, physician to physician, provided I have your permission.”

“Go ahead. She’ll probably understand it all better than I can,” Maggie said. She gave Alex a weak smile before stepping into her mother’s room, leaving the two to talk. 

If she thought her mother had looked weak when she had arrived just hours earlier, it was nothing compared to the woman she saw now. It was obvious that the information Hendrix had revealed had had an effect on her mother. 

Maggie sat in the chair next to the bed and took her mother’s hand in hers. “Hey, mami,” she whispered. 

“Margarita…” It came out as a wheeze.

“Yeah, I’m right here, mami,” she said.

A heavy breath. “Tengo cosas que necesito decirte porque el haematologist dijo…”

No. She wasn’t going to do this. Not now. 

“Mami, está bien,” Maggie tried to reassure her. “Él se equivocó. Puedes ganarle a esto, yo sé que puedes. Todo lo que tienes…”

She felt like a child again, pleading for her parents to fix the world’s latest evil because she thought they could do anything. Maria Rodas had certainly seemed the person who could fix anything, right any wrong, fight the hardest of fights and come up on top.

“Margarita.” Despite the overall weakness in her mother’s tone, there was still enough sharpness to make Maggie’s jaw click shut. “Suficiente. No puedo y no quiero.”

The exhaustion in her voice made Maggie stop cold. Everything finally clicked into place. 

_ Tu mamá dijo que ella nunca iba a volver a su casa,  _ her aunt had told her quietly on the way to the hospital. Maggie hadn’t wanted to believe it. Her mother was such a strong woman. To think that she was resigned to never returning home, to dying elsewhere, it just didn’t compute. 

But now it did. Her mother was tired. Her kidneys were failing. Her liver was nothing more than a scarred hunk of flesh. And now she knew she had a cancer they couldn’t treat because her body was just too far gone. 

It wasn’t fair. Maria Rodas was a strong woman. She deserved more than this, deserved a better death than this. She should have been at home with years ahead of her. But the universe had already decided she would get none of that. She was in a hospital bed with hours ahead of her and she was going to die here.

“Okay.” Maggie let out a shaky breath. “Okay, mami. No tienes que pelear.” She reached up and brushed her fingers against her mother’s curls. She ignored the way her heart cracked at the sight of her mother’s eyes fluttering shut at the gentle touch.

“Estoy muy cansada, Margarita…”

“Sí mamí, yo sé.”

“Tu esposa.” Maggie felt her heart leap once more at the word. Esposa. “La mujer de antes, la pelirroja, ella te hace feliz?”

“Sí, mami.” Both Lucy and Alex made her feel happier than she ever thought she could be. Not that she would tell her mother that, even with the woman on her deathbed.

A small, weak nod. “Bueno.” Her head lolled back against the pillow. “Te amo, mijita. Siempre.”

Maggie bit back a sob. She hadn’t heard those words from her mother in years. Hearing them now felt like a gut punch, a reminder of everything that still needed to be said but would likely stay unsaid. 

“Te amo también.” Maggie didn’t miss the way her mother’s lips twitched upwards into something that resembled a faint, pleased smile just before her eyes slipped shut. There was a soft breath, then an almost inaudible groan. Her hand slackened in Maggie’s grip. 

“Mami?” She tightened her grip on her mother’s hand, as if trying to provoke a response. 

Nothing. 

Maggie let out a shuddering breath. This time, she couldn’t stop the sob from coming through. She stood and pressed her forehead against her mother’s as she started to cry. 

Te amo. Te amo. Vuelve por favor. Tengo cosas que necesito decirte. Quiero decirte más sobre mi esposa y nuestra novia. Quiero decirte sobre mi vida y más. Vuelve por favor. Por favor. 

The door hissed open behind her. A hand gently placed itself on her shoulder. 

“Maggie, sweetheart.” Alex’s voice was soft. “C’mere.”

She let herself be pulled into Alex’s arms. She tucked her face into her wife’s shoulder to try and muffle the sound of her tears. She felt Alex start to rub small circles on her upper back. The gentle motion made her cry even harder. 

**Author's Note:**

> Translation:
> 
> "Te amo. Te amo. Vuelve por favor. Tengo cosas que necesito decirte. Quiero decirte más sobre mi esposa y nuestra novia. Quiero decirte sobre mi vida y más. Vuelve por favor. Por favor." - I love you, I love you. Come back please. I have things that I need to tell you. I want to tell you more about my wife and our girlfriend. I want to tell you about my life and more. Come back please. Please.


End file.
